Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Remembrance

Morning light on Yom Kippur.

Jake died exactly three months ago. Some days it feels like years since I had to say goodbye to him. Sometimes, it feels like he should still be here, curled up in his overstuffed rocker. Death is incomprehensible, to me at least.

The journeys I took this summer, the friends I re-connected with, the changes of scenery and routine were intensely healing and in some way created a sense of increased distance from all the emotions stirred up on that sad day. Though I can access the grief that lay so heavy on my heart all summer (from before he died, even), it is no longer acute. The passage of time/space really does heal all wounds!

Last night for the first time I dreamed of Jake. There was nothing fancy about the dream. I found his leash and got some plastic bags, took him for a walk. We had another dog with us but the focus in the dream was on Jake, his soft gold fur and beautiful brown eyes. It was not a lucid dream, but I kept thinking, "It's so good to see Jake!" as if I knew in the dream we had been separated. He seemed rather nonchalant about our reunion. Oh well. It was a sweet dream, reassuring in an autumnal, melancholy way.

What is remembered, lives.

REMEMBERING

There are threads of old sound heard over and overphrases of Shakespeare or Mozart the slenderwands of the auroras playing out from theminto dark time the passing of a fewmigrants high in the night far from the ancient flocksfar from the rest of the words far from the instruments

mmmm reya - the first photograph caught me and held me . . . through the gold and green dark-veined leaves there's a little space filled with reddish coloured leaves. a breathing space, where the yellow almost mauve sunlight tickles its way in but doesn't paint with the broad brush of green that takes care of the big picture. two branches hold the space. like a spine. the trunk -like a spine - holds the spaces. so it is with the jakester. the spine of your being holds the spaces he fills. paints the colours of his being with a small brush. merwyn's words were purejoy!!! sweet night in dc reya!!! steven

The first photo with the sunlight filtered through on the left made me think you've captured yourself an angel in the lens, Reya. Magnificent.

As for dreaming about Jake, I have the occasional dream about dogs I owned that have passed on: even one of a wolf companion from thousands of years ago at the retreat of the last ice age. Jake has come to be with you for a time as your healing continues.

It makes sense to me that Jake was nonchalant about your reunion. Dogs have a sense of time that is different from ours...more, hmmmmm, everlasting. We come. We go. We get home when we get home. To them a minute can be as short as a second or as long as a millenium. In his world, he has not lost you...just waiting until you get together again. Whenever and where ever.